


Going Down in Smoke

by Tbikape



Category: No Straight Roads (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, I saw tatina being listed as a human and thought "Lol nope", Major Character Injury, Mentions of Grooming, Mentions of Pedophilia, Minor Character Death, No beta we die like sidewalk worms, OCs i guess, References to Drugs, Suicide Attempt, The Goolings-character, Unhappy Ending, Violence, ask to tag, hurt/barely any comfort, i hate this guy, look at me making problems that probably weren't there to begin with
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27594788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tbikape/pseuds/Tbikape
Summary: Kul Fyra goes to confront a bandmate for a good reason. It goes poorly.
Relationships: Eve | Nadia/Tatiana | Kul Fyra (No Straight Roads)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Going Down in Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, this has been in the works for a while. I was inspired by the sheer amount of people I used to look up to being exposed as groomers. I hope its not too bad to read. I jammed a bunch of headcanons into this. I saw Tatiana and went "Nope not human" and brought elementals into the mix. Same for Yinu and her mother, I'ma call them Florn. Plant people are cool. Wrote this in a little over a month so please feel free to give constructive criticism. I wanted to add so much to this but eventually the work has to come out, right?

It struck Fyra as ironic that she was preparing for a fight against a bandmate. She sung about tolerance and crap, after all. Hell, the whole reason she hired Kindling was due to the racist bullshit of the border war. Now she was going to fight a florn. Justified, in this case, but still she felt bad about living up to her "purpose".Was she ready? No. Did she have to? Yes.

If she so much as caught that scumbags hair alight they would go up faster than fireworks. Her signature triple flaming whips would have to be shelved. She reluctantly unequipped Three Strange Days and switched the mod to Radioactive Toy. As for She Sells Sanctuary? She never took the mod off her guitar.

He'd chosen the venue. She knew in the instant Kindling named the stage that he wasn't going to listen to reason. It was familiar territory for both of them. But he'd be waiting at the center. The whole venue would be his weapon. She'd have to go easy. It was her fault it got this bad after all; pretending she didn't see this happening behind her back. She had to win this. For everyone's sake. And he was a drummer. They were painfully predictable.

The lights were on and the most recent poster was still broadcast on the television behind the stage. Kindling was twirling his drumsticks with a shit-eating grin plastered ear to ear. He chuckled softly at her approach.

"Kuuul Fyyyra. Nice to see ya tonight. You should really have backed down last night. Got a little close to spilling the beans in front of Charcoal. I ain't havin' that."

Fyra tried to keep cool. " Look Kindling, we may have our differences, but I'm not gonna turn a blind eye to this. Not this time. Not over this shit. Either you come clean and drop this now or I'll have to beat you like a pinata until you do."

"How about I don't do either. How about I continue seeing Penelope and you shut your firey yap? You were meant to be alone anyways!" Her patience was getting dangerously thin.

"Don't make me do this. I'm not going to ask again.. One mistake and we both go down in smoke."

Kindling laughed. "You think I'm scared of some bitch that can't even fight back properly?"

Ok. She had it. Fuck actually talking to the dickweed.She charged at the stage, her guitar over her head. Kindling dove behind his drums with a squeak. The base drum let out a loud thud, throwing her back a ways. So that's his mod... He started to hit out a slow rhythm to one of their songs and metallic v-shaped breakers came out.

They moved slowly at first before speeding up towards her in lanes. The thing about drummers leading was they needed a rhythm. There was always a break. Even as the rows started to fill she could always count on the patterns. Easy. She dived to the right as the first volley flew. As long as she kept it up she could work her way to the stage.

Build, release,repeat.

Dodge, block, parry.

She took the stage with fervor and landed a solid thwack on Kindlings chin. Before she could even draw her guitar back the base drum hit her, flinging her like a ragdoll.

Fyra was glad she was an elemental or the cracks from impact would have been a worrying sign. She pushed herself up to see the drummers headstamp had changed from a high-hat to a shattered version.

Now he'd take her seriously. The man started to play an eleven stroke roll. Breakers amassed around the man, spinning outward like a clock. Fyra ran to the left with projectiles chasing her heels. The beat increased in tempo quickly, she was starting to lose forward momentum in favor of not getting side-swiped. Time to pull out all the stops. A loud strum from Kerosene brought She Sells Sanctuary's Shield up and the breaker phased harmlessly through her. A quick jumping roll propelled her towards the stage, must have got a good seven feet in before getting smacked by the pointed end of a mistake.Nothing too big. Stung like hell, though.

Kindling begin to tap with the devotion of a madman, desperately trying to stun-lock Fyra. He seemed content to run the gambit of rudiments as she was forced to dance back and forth for any of the remaining ground. She ran through the paradiddle-diddle gap, spun through the flam tap, rolled through the lesson 25 and even let the triple ratamacue hit her in the leg to close the gap.

As soon as she set foot on stage Kindling tried to use the base drum shockwave, she knew he would, but she still had two uses of her mods to go. The knock-back was negated beautifully.Her guitar swung rhythmically once, twice, thrice. She almost sliced into the poor guy with the sharp end but brought it down on cymbal instead. Worth a chip on the bladed end to save someone's life even if they were scum. He tried futilely to use the drum pedal again. No dice yet. She brought Kerosene down flat on the man's head.

Kindling had had it up to his foliage with the woman. With a mighty "PISS OFF" the man grew what little he could and threw Fyra. The base drum kicked in as well before she could even get up. After having been thrown a good twenty feet her body was starting to hurt. She let out a small groan and rolled to her knees. Kindling pulled out a grass blade from his hair with disgust.

"Why can't you ever let me have my fun!?"

"She's FIFTEEN!"

"HUMAN fifteen." He licked his lips.

Before Fyra knew it a fireball sailed just inches from his nose.

Shit she lost her temper. Shiiit that was so close. Shiiiiiiiit her life almost pretty much ended. Next time she may have not be lucky enough to miss him, god, did she ever want to hit the bastard with that though. He seemed to take offense to that.

What he played next... wasn't even music. Just abstract patterns solely intended to cut her off. He... he couldn't do that, right? Even the projectiles seemed to vary in size as if the drums themselves were protesting the abuse. She jumped over a few of the smaller breakers, but the floor was filled with waves of the small fast moving chunks of metal. A rouge larger breaker hit her in the side of the legs sending her sprawling backwards. She rolled to the left while Kindling set the next volley down. The sound of a cymbal kicked off a premature fire of all of the breakers on the field, all aimed at her. Another crack as she was thrown farther from the stage.

She had to get up. Her arms were knocked out from under her at the sound of another cymbal crash. Damn, that was her nose.

She tried in vain to use her guitar to prop herself up. The cymbal told her otherwise and some strings were the victim.

She needed to get up. She couldn't lose. Not to this. Not over this.Kul smacked Kerosene against the ground as Radioactive Toy reflected a healthy amount of metal at the bastard.

She got just enough time from the free clear of the field to stand up... and almost fall down on an aching unstable leg. It was time to end this. She couldn't take much more abuse.With a guttural yell she jumped at the stage, finally using her ability to speed herself up. Her guitar held majestically in the air like a sword. She was blinded by the accelerated pace.

Only to be hit in the face with a full sized breaker and have it fling her like a ragdoll. She was swept limply away against the projectile. Between bats to the side with cracks by her own body she felt her mind getting distant from her body. It could be the pain or maybe she just was trying to escape from this in any way she could.

Kul Fyra looked up through clouded vision to see a blurry Kindling approach her. Something dragged behind him with occasional clunk. She lit on fire instinctively but the man never stopped his approach. W..was he insane? Bad question. Was he trying to die? she could only weakly sputter out "S-stay back.." amidst the billowing smoke coming from her mouth.He stopped short of the flaming woman and pulled a small jug from a cooler behind him.

"Shoulda stopped. But you gotta always find a way to make my life hell, don'cha? "

Kindling upturned the jug. The world exploded into pain. An unearthly wail echoed across the field. Glassy cracks grew on the back of Fyra's hand as she writhed in agony. Kindling backed away as quickly as he could from her. Heck. That was a lot of fire. The jug emptied the last of its dry ice weakly onto the grass. Really did break a fire elemental like they said. Sucks that he only could get enough for her hand. Was she through screaming? Good.

"Tell anyone about this and I take your other hand Ta-ti-an-a."

She could only watch as he walked away. An empty jug was chucked at her face and melted as she tried desperately to calm down.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Well, This couldn't have happened at a better time."

"CHARCOAL!"

Wick shook her head. Of course they would not know how to handle this with tact. The guy was odd to the extreme, but at least she could trust that he was benign. Charcoal was only trying to lighten the mood. Kindling.... was suspicious. He was missing a blade of hair. Those didn't just fall out. Not at his age. And Kul Fyra didn't usually sit back. There was a skunk in the room and Wick smelled a waft from the tall grass.

"Is the tour cancelled?" Kindling looked sympathetically to Wick. It had been her idea and three of the four okayed it. Fyra being the only outlier. It wasn't supposed to do anything but drum up fans from out of city since since they'd be able to reclaim it so easily. Wick had wanted to tour for so long and TODAY Fyra chose to have a beef with Kindling. Whatever band BS that caused her to fight obviously got out of hand. (Eugh. pun.) She's going to have to schedule a visit with a damn powerful healer to fix that. May be months before an open one'd be free that would heal an elemental.They'd have to cast a vote and .... wait. Tati's out of the vote. Heck... they'd already advertised the famous Goolings going to tour.

Wick shook her head."I'm still in. This could be an amazing publicity stunt for the cause. Sorry Tatiana, but Fyras going to have to be shelved for now. We'll scrounge up enough for a healer soon enough, especially with the tour, right? "

"Sounds like a good enough idea. But when we get back what will the people who see the tour think of her?" Charcoal mused.

"Whatever, this is really important to Wick. No matter what, we really gotta at least look like we give two shits, right? Just back her up when we get back."

Tatiana was idly tracing the crack on the back of her hand. She wasn't listening."Hmm." It hurt Wick to see Tatiana so despondent. 

She grabbed Tataina's broken hand and pulled it close to her. "Maybe now would be a good time to try writing a few songs?" They pointedly ignored the "Hey!" from Charcoal. "We'll be back soon. I promise."  
"And if you still suck at songwriting I can spice it up!" Charcoal slapped Tataina on the back hard enough to cause her to jerk forward. Wick sneered momentarily but let out a chuckle. 

She grabbed his hand far to tightly for just a simple lead. "Come on you freaking goober." He stuck out his tongue. "I'm not going to party TOO hard without you. It'll be nice to check out the scenes in other towns for once. I'll bring you something neat! Love you!"

She waved to Tataina as they rounded the corner. She never saw Kindling's malicious smile when he left to "meet' more fans. She never saw Tatiana put her head in her good hand. She never saw Tatiana silently try to cry and curse her species. She never even saw her again. Wick Lost her battle with drugs on that trip. And Tatiana would have blamed Kindling if Charcoal hadn't been with him the entire day. Wick had been left cold and alone for around four hours they managed to find out. If Tataina had been there she reasoned that she would have been able to save Wendy. Penelope Never reached out again. Tataina never had the guts to see if that was even her real name. And Tatiana blamed this all on herself.  
  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

At the news Tataina wandered lifelessly through the city. Her footfalls echoing around the usually bustling city did nothing to ease her grief. She'd planned to walk off the edge of the city and just.. die. Everyone died alone so at least she'd get that the same as everyone else. She'd wanted to mail her solidified corpse to Kindling as a last fuck you. But whats the point, huh? In the haze she just managed to find an alleyway in what she guessed was somewhere near the edge. Her legs gave out just then leaving Tatiana to thunk against the ground. Her guitar felt like a useless lump against her back. She leaned against the stone walls and stared into nothing. her breathing was shallow but she didn't even need to breathe, so why bother? The only reason was to make her voice go farther but screw her voice. This wasn't about that. Her voice wasn't going to fix anything. It had been a long time before she heard something. A clunk. She turned to the side to see platform shoes standing next to a kite.  
"Hey kid. Want a guitar? I'm going to take a dip in the bay and I don't need it."  
The guy sputtered for a few seconds. He finally gathered his voice."NO. I-I mean not like this! Kul Fyra? You've been missing from performances from a month!? Are you ok?" She narrowed her eyes "Ok stupid question. D..do you need to talk about it? I'm a good listener, or so I hear."  
"Sure. Why the fuck not? Can't take my other hand if I'm dead. You have a name or not?"

"Kliff. Kliff Hangar. No puns please."

The man was strangely insistent she tries again. He suggests she try to synthesize music. She visits the alley again and again, but never does she call him anything more than a fan. He is eventually let go from his job in favor of visiting her. She doesn't really care. He gets angry at her for switching genres. She tells him to shut up. The end of the war hits and the Goolings switch to general rock. By the end of her talks she shifts the blame to the genre of rock. Eventually three years after the war Kindling got peppered by drones controlled by a technopath. Even with this she hires a technopath in the Sayu team. Even with this she heirs a Florn duo in Yinu and her mother. Charcoal eventually stops talking to her. 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tatiana held the bucket of paint thinner loosely in her bad hand while Eve personally wiped some graffiti off of one of her paintings. Eve was unusually quiet after the whole B2J incident and Tatiana felt as if she was just making things worse by being there. It was agonizing to just stand back and watch Eve destroy her own works due to no fault of her own. All the Head of NSR could do to personally mitigate the foul feelings brought about by the opportunistic destruction was stand by and try not to daydream about her past. Andd she failed spectacularly. Great job. Good going Tatiana. Really, she may have just as well stayed back in her room and stared at the broken glass she, herself, had wrecked. Would be fitting, hmm? She had a tendency to ruin things precious to her. Maybe she should just lock herself away from hurting Eve as well. She should have backed down, should have-

"Guess the answer was no, wasn't it?" The two-toned woman gently caressed Tatiana's cheek as she stared into her eyes.

Oh crud. Eve had started to talk hadn't she? "Erm.." Man, she was a wreck. First causing this with her hatred for the past and now she couldn't even stay out of it for ten minutes enough to try to make up for hurting the people she cared about.

"It is unimportant anyways.. You're crackling. Not a good idea around a bucket of thinner, is it?" Eve's hands slowly pulled the thinner away from her. Of course Eve had to stay away from the elemental's face as her version of crying caused licks of flame to escape her crust. Threatening to burn the fragile human. To immolate her works. Burn the very thing she had tried to hold. She felt like she had to apologize for something.

"Sorry, I try to not think about the past around humans, but it just... creeps up sometimes. You know how it is."

Eve's only response was a sigh and a sad smile. Her head tilted to the right and the light bounced off the colored side of her face. Tatiana tried to look away. It hurt to see Eve right now. Her head was cautiously and gently drawn back to face Eve. "Let's let the robots deal with the busywork. Anything I can salvage is a victory but I shall let those works that fall to the sand of time and whims of... ungrateful... tenants be regaled to the realm of memories."

Eve's hand lightly grasped Tatiana's good one as she was slowly lead away. The doors of Eveart gallery opened to let the duo pass. Hordes of mechanical servants flooded the streets with paint rollers trying to erase the previous evening like the whole event wasn't a stain on her mind like the other mistakes she'd made. Tataina just realized In the bustle and hustle people almost couldn't see her holding hands.Eve felt cold to the overwhelming heat of Tatiana. All humans were cold to her. Never true cold (she flexed her hand too quickly and was punished by a squeal of volcanic glass.) Eve froze upon hearing the squeal. Her hand grabbed tighter. Words echoed in her head as the woman leaned her head into Tatiana.

Fire elementals are meant to be alone.

Eve had started to sing. She wasn't very good but it made Tatiana feel a little bit better.

Fire elementals are meant to be alone.

People stared at the ill advised pair. Didn't either of them know better?

Fire elementals are meant to be alone.

Tatiana gently rubbed the back of Eve's palm. The faint feeling of a pulse beneath it always fascinated her.

Fire elementals are meant to be alone.

Gossip started again. People said the same things as they ever did.

Fire elementals are meant to be alone.

They walked past the last remnants of Dream Fever and away from the crowd. Eve slyly pulls Tataina to face her. Both of them lean in but its Eve who starts the kiss. They walk in silence back to NSR tower. She wasn't going to let go of this. It was nice to imagine that they were the only people in this world for a while. And maybe one day they could find someone who could help them.. till them it's look and the barest of touch. But she wasn't going to give up. There had to be someone for somebody broken like her.

**Author's Note:**

> Mods:  
> Kul Fyra  
> Three Strange Days: Three whips that span a large distance come out of her that are spaced evenly. They ignite and float slightly.  
> Radioactive Toy: All projectiles on the field are flung towards the attacker. By anyone. Works best in a group.  
> She Sells Sanctuary: A shield that can take any single hit in full. She named it after a song she liked and then fell in love with the song afterwards.  
> Theme: Semi-or-obscure rock songs  
> Kindling:  
> Bam!: Throws people away. After all, isn't it over if they can get close enough to clobber you? Needs a base drum  
> Zap!: Releases his ability sooner. Requires a high-hat. He never takes this one off.  
> Theme: Sound effects  
> It wasn't in the fic but why not for Charcoal and Wick  
> Charcoal:  
> Sweet Dreams: Can pull two objects together with increasing force per distance. Used mostly to annoy people out of combat.  
> Savory Victory: Launches needles of energy from a small summoned creature behind him. Lasts until killed. Named Walla.  
> Theme: Flavors  
> Wick: ( all proximity based)  
> He who has learned to steal: Can pull a small item to her. Used to stop fights by stealing instruments as soon as she can get close. Also is used to steal.  
> No matter how big the whale is: Always hits the person its aimed at if they are in range. A large chunk of health is taken off no matter the armor.  
> Theme: Malaysian Proverbs (I looked some up. I hope I did them justice.)  
> Abilities:  
> Tatiana: Time manipulation (underdeveloped as Kul Fyra)  
> Kindling: Able to create metallic V shaped pieces of metal that release in a straight line after a short interval (requires a tool)  
> Charcoal: Makes thrown things bounce. (underdeveloped at the time of the Goolings)  
> Wick: Can amplify the aftereffects of an action


End file.
